Communications regulators from East Africa are moving to create new regional rules aimed at lowering mobile roaming costs and improving connectivity across borders, part of a broader effort to deepen economic integration and expand digital services in the region.
Officials from communications regulatory authorities across East African Community (EAC) member states met Thursday in Dar es Salaam to review a proposed regional mobile roaming framework that would harmonise pricing structures, consumer protections and operational standards among member countries.
The initiative targets one of the longstanding complaints among travelers and businesses in East Africa: high cross-border communication costs and uneven mobile service experiences when moving between countries.
“Affordable, seamless and reliable cross-border communication is no longer simply a telecommunications issue; it is a practical requirement for the realization of the EAC Common Market and the emerging Single Digital Market,” EAC Deputy Secretary General Andrea Aguer Ariik Malueth said during opening remarks.
Regional officials argue that lower roaming charges could help facilitate trade and labor mobility in a bloc that has increasingly prioritized regional integration through digital infrastructure projects.
John Wallace Daffa, director of licensing and compliance at Tanzania’s communications regulator, said earlier regional reforms had already shown some impact.
“Roaming is no longer considered a luxury,” Daffa said. “This is aligned with the EAC vision of free movement of people, goods and services and reducing the cost of doing business.”
Still, efforts to create seamless regional roaming have faced implementation challenges for years, with differences in national regulations, pricing structures and telecom market conditions slowing progress across member states.
The East African Community first pursued regional roaming reforms more than a decade ago under the “One Network Area” initiative, which reduced roaming charges among some member countries but left uneven implementation across the bloc. Industry analysts and regional policymakers have repeatedly pointed to regulatory fragmentation as a barrier to creating a unified digital market.
The proposed framework under discussion would require national regulators to coordinate oversight on pricing, quality standards, compliance monitoring and dispute resolution while increasing cooperation on technical issues such as interoperability, fraud prevention and traffic management.
Officials also emphasized consumer protections, including greater transparency in roaming charges and safeguards against unexpected billing and service disruptions.
The meeting brought together regulators, technical experts and development partners, including the World Bank, as East African governments pursue broader efforts to expand regional broadband infrastructure and digital integration.
The East African Community comprises eight member states Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
